


How Do I

by celeste9



Category: Primeval
Genre: F/M, Introspection, Kid Fic, Motherhood, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 14:30:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1071569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abby never wanted children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Do I

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a discussion about Abby and motherhood. For the free space on my Primeval Denial bingo card, 'pregnancy'. I can't believe it either. Beta by deinonychus_1.

Abby never wanted children.

She thinks that whatever instinct women have that makes them good mothers, that makes them want to be mothers, she doesn’t have it. She doesn’t coo at every baby she sees like so many women seem to do; she doesn’t look at mothers with their little children and wish she had one of her own. She never even wanted a doll when she was a girl.

Mostly she thinks about her own mother and figures it’s good she won’t ever have children.

But Connor loves children. Abby watches Connor and knows, deep in her soul, that Connor would make a brillant dad.

And Abby loves Connor. She thinks there is pressing little she wouldn’t do if it would make Connor happy, if it would make him smile that amazing smile that makes her insides curl in pleasure even now, and she doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with that. She knows Connor would give up his dream of children for her, so it doesn’t seem difficult to go the other way.

It’s an accident, anyway, when it happens. She takes five different tests just to be sure. It takes two weeks after that until she can work up the nerve to tell Connor.

“I’m pregnant,” Abby says, blurting it out, because she doesn’t know how else to do this and it’s probably best just to say it.

Connor stares at her for a while, his eyes going big and his mouth slackening the tiniest bit, before his face splits into the biggest grin Abby’s seen for some time.

“You’re pregnant! Are you really? Like, you’re having a baby? We’re having a baby! I’m going to be a dad!”

He seizes her in a tight hug, squeezing her harder than he ever could have managed all those years ago when they first met, and Abby laughs because Connor’s joy is as infectious as it always has been.

But then Connor pulls back and he looks at her, instantly more serious. “Abby,” he says. “Abby, is this what you want? I know we didn’t plan for this and I know you never wanted kids and--”

“Hush,” Abby says, pressing a finger to Connor’s lips. “It’s all right, Connor. Everything will be all right.”

She doesn’t know that it will be, but she hopes it will. She thinks that she can tackle anything as long as she has Connor with her.

-

Abby doesn’t tell anyone how terrified she is. She is terrified that she will be a horrible mother. She doesn’t know how to be one and she doesn’t have anyone to ask.

She meets Jack once for lunch and as she looks at him, she wants to ask, _How do I not become her?_

But of course she doesn’t ask.

-

Connor rests his hand on Abby’s belly to feel the baby kick. The expression on his face is one of pure rapturous joy, adoration and love. It makes Abby feel warm in a way she never does when she feels the baby kick herself.

When the baby kicks and Connor isn’t there, all Abby thinks of is how big it must be growing, how it must look in her womb. She thinks of all the mother animals she cared for in the zoo and of all the births she was a part of. She wonders how it could have seemed so exciting then when now all she manages is this sort of detached curiosity.

Unless Connor is around.

She keeps waiting for motherly instincts to appear. She thinks she should feel different, knowing that she is resposible for another living creature, that she is the only thing tethering the baby to the world. She sits on the sofa at night and thinks about what her life will be like when the baby comes.

She wonders if, when her baby is born, she will love it just because it’s hers. Hers and Connor’s.

She wonders what will happen if she doesn’t.

-

The baby grows inside of her and Abby resents it. She begins to think of it as a leech, feeding off her. It makes her back ache and her feet ache and she feels huge, like a beached whale, lurching around. She goes in the field and sees the way the others look at her, like she needs to be protected, and she hates it. She sees what’s in Connor’s eyes and knows he wishes she would stop, but he will never ask her to.

The baby grows and grows and then Lester refuses to allow her in the field, no matter how she yells. Abby stays behind and sits next to Jess and wonders how she does this every day.

-

“I’m not going to stay home when the baby’s born,” Abby tells Connor.

“I know. I never expected you would. Me, though,” Connor says, grinning. “I think I’d like to be that kind of dad, staying home with the rugrats. Rugrat, one, singular,” he clarifies, and Abby laughs. “Just so long as you don’t expect anything to be very clean.”

Abby kisses him because this is why she loves him. He fills all her empty spaces and he fits around her edges, softens them. He is everything she isn’t.

-

The baby comes.

It hurts. It hurts more than anything and people keep talking to her and Abby wants to _scream,_ she wants to scream at them all to just leave, to shut up, to leave her alone, and she thinks she is screaming, actually, shouting at them, but Connor is there. Connor is there, grounding her, and it hurts and it’s all much messier than it ever is on TV, but Connor. Connor, Connor, Connor.

The baby cries. It cries and cries and they put it in her arms, the little pink wriggling mass of it, like a tiny shriveled alien. It looks fragile and breakable and Abby hopes she won’t drop it. She hardly even knows how to hold it, where to put her hands.

Abby is afraid. She doesn’t know what will happen; she doesn’t know what sort of mother she will be.

But they put the baby in her arms and Abby loves her.

**_End_ **


End file.
